Who Would Let Ebola Into The US? TV show The Strain vs. Reality

By spocko, on July 30th, 2014

Anyone watching “The Strain?” It combines some real science with zombie/vampire stuff. What stuck me about the show was how realistic some parts were (like the first CDC team sweep of the plane) combined with ridiculous amounts of people carrying the idiot ball.

In this clip the CDC is overruled in a medical quarantine situation by the Director of Health and Human Services. There is no way this would happen in real life. I just can’t suspend my disbelief when they get stuff like this wrong. When it comes to people’s health the medical community always has the final say, like Bones had on Captain Kirk on the Enterprise.

Crazy, eh? But then I remember when Condi Rice overruled the EPA and ignored doctor’s advice.

The EPA was not given full control over its press releases in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Administrator Whitman issued a memo on September 12 announcing that “all statements to the media should be cleared through the NSC [National Security Council] before they are released,”5 and the New York Post reported that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was “the final decision maker” regarding the release of information by the EPA.6 In addition the OIG report details how the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) pressed the EPA to “add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones” from agency press releases.7 For example, information discussing the potential health risk for “sensitive populations” from exposure to particulate matter was discouraged from inclusion in a press release by a CEQ official, and language discussing detected levels of asbestos was softened.8The involvement of NSC and CEQ officials raises questions as to whether public health concerns were trumped by political and security priorities.

We won’t get Ebola here in the US for a number of reasons. Our doctors know that protecting the lives of the people are more important that the parts of economy that might be impacted in the short term. Right? Right?